Russian Youth Hockey Game Called Off After Multiple Line Brawls (Video)

The next time Don Cherry either insinuates or openly asserts that Russian hockey players are soft and don’t know how to mix it up, kindly direct him to this video. Because, obviously, the next generation of Russian players have taken the hockey oracle’s critique to heart and have overcorrected just a bit.

What am I talking about, you ask?

I’m talking about a game between 10-year-old hockey players in Russia that was so violent the refs had to call the game off altogether—because all the players ended up in the penalty box.

Okay, fine, I exaggerated. Not all of the players ended up in the penalty box. Just thirty of them.

The Moscow White Bears and Metallurg Novokuznetsk were squaring off in a youth tournament recently, playing for the prestigious (apparently) Yamaha Cup. However, the two squads—composed entirely of kids born in 2002—kept getting into one line brawl after another. Finally, with 30 players in the penalty box, the refs decided to call the game. The reasoning, of course, was that there weren’t enough players available to play the game. But in reality, I think the refs were just sick and tired to pulling the 10-year-olds off each other.